Page 177 of A University of Betrayal

I pulled Bayla a little closer to me. When her eyes began to glow yellow, my breath caught.

Nash paused and held eye contact until Bayla shook her head and the bicolored eyes returned to their original human glow.

“What the hell are you?” Nash gasped.

“I’m sure you meanwho.My name is Bayla Adams, and it was nice to meet you... Nash Copeland,” she said with uncertainty, the blush returning to her cheeks before she pulled me away by one arm.

It Hurts

Tessa Rose Jackson, FFM

“Your eyes...” I said, perplexed, staring at Bay as we disappeared from Nash’s sight behind one of the oak trees, and I unfortunately no longer had a view of Ems either. I would talk to her later.

“What’s wrong with my eyes?” she suddenly asked in shock, and I couldn’t help but look at this rare phenomenon in front of me. One deep blue, the other a greenish turquoise blue. It was as if two completely different oceans had been separated, and one had been placed in her right eye and the other in her left.

“Julian. What’s wrong with my eyes?”

“They had a yellowish glow,” I began slowly, remembering the first time her eyes had turned that color, back in the forest before she had fainted. Her eyes had just looked like those of a Senseque, just as they had back then, but I didn’t say so.

Bayla’s expression was full of concern. Then she looked around and pulled me further into the shade of one of the many oak trees on campus.

“I’m going to tell you something, and you’ll promise to keep it to yourself.”

I just nodded, and then she told me everything: from Alarik’s training, that he would protect her from the pack, to the encounter with a damn Ruisangor in her house.

“You should have told me something,” I pressed out tensely, because I didn’t like the fact that a Ruisangor had been so close to her.

“I don’t know who I can trust here and who will lie to me next.”

She blinked away a tear, and I felt the need to take her in my arms and tell her that we would find an answer to all the questions. But then wouldn’t I be lying to her as well?

“I know I can’t answer your questions.” As she looked around frantically, I turned her head toward me, and she stared at me, upset. “But I can listen to you and help you get away from here.”

“How?” Hope flared in her eyes.

Imaginarily, I slapped myself for the way I would let her down.

“I’ll talk to your mum.”

“No!” She reached for my wrist and gripped it tighter than Nash had before. Her panic, I felt it to the core.

“Please don’t tell her.Promiseme,” Bay pleaded desperately.

“Okay, I won’t...” If it was that important to her.

“Promise!”

I couldn’t hold back my grin. “Okay, witch girl, I promise.”

She held out her middle finger to me and I allowed myself a joke by taking mine and hooking it into hers, like it was done with the pinky in a vow.

She stared at me in disbelief, but to my surprise, she understood a few seconds later and squeezed my finger further.

“Don’t youdarebreak that ridiculous vow.”

Then she let go and ran her fingers through her tangled hair.

“I’ll go with you tonight,” I said firmly. She widened her eyes. “Just in case.”

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